As the healthcare industry transitions to a more integrated and collaborative care delivery and payment model, providers must be able to coordinate with multiple clinicians in different facilities, while still delivering excellent care. As a result, healthcare communications must be efficient and value-oriented.
Claudia Dent, vice president of product management at Everbridge in Glendale, Calif.: This is particularly important as providers work to streamline communications not only with internal staff, but also with remote employees, third-party providers, insurers, and patients in an effort to create a "connected hospital."
This connected hospital model is best realized if the primary communication solution is a single platform for care team collaboration and clinical communications, enabling mass notifications, geographic information systems targeting, secure mobile communications, HIPAA-compliant communications with staff and partners, IT service alerting, on-call scheduling and incident management. Examples of a unified critical communications platform for healthcare include:
• If a bedside diagnostics monitor issues an alarm, an alert can be sent to the nurse on duty, even if that nurse happens to be on break. Depending on the type of alarm, the appropriate members of care team can also be notified.
• When the EHR system or an important server goes down, integrated communication solutions ensure that clinical staff are notified of the problem right away.
• In the case of emergencies (for instance, a weather event or security issue that may endanger staff and patients) an alert can be sent from this platform to all staff members across all devices to initiate action, such as an evacuation.
Under the connected hospital model, communications are fully integrated and enable clinical workflow optimization. Wireless technology allows caregivers and patients to remain connected no matter where they are in a facility, providing timely and accurate monitoring.